The Double-Barreled Shotgun In Video Games

Way cooler than single barrel. Brings me back to Doom and Doom 2.
 
The shotguns in most modern shooters are pretty inaccurate as far as aim goes.. just like a real shotgun.

Reloading is also super slow.

When fighting a bunch of baddies, the shotgun just doesn't cut it.

The only reason I keep them in inventory is for backup when I run out of ammo in other guns.
 
shotguns are your everyday close quarter clearing weapons. their counter parts are usually SMG's.

In CQC's, you want something that either fires fast rpm with good circular spread or broad spread.
 
The one thing that bothers me with shotguns in most shooters is their range is rediculously poor.

With heavy shot and a narrow choke, you should have excellent range with a shotgun, or hell with a slug option you can certainly reach out and touch someone. But in most games, it seems like if you are more than 15 feet away, its as if you threw salt at them.
 
Ducman69 said:
The one thing that bothers me with shotguns in most shooters is their range is rediculously poor.

With heavy shot and a narrow choke, you should have excellent range with a shotgun, or hell with a slug option you can certainly reach out and touch someone. But in most games, it seems like if you are more than 15 feet away, its as if you threw salt at them.
Click to expand...

Guess you've never played any battlefield game from bad company2 to BF4
 
Ducman69 said:
The one thing that bothers me with shotguns in most shooters is their range is rediculously poor.

With heavy shot and a narrow choke, you should have excellent range with a shotgun, or hell with a slug option you can certainly reach out and touch someone. But in most games, it seems like if you are more than 15 feet away, its as if you threw salt at them.
Click to expand...

I agree. But you have to realize, the shotgun in it's natural form is a pretty unbalanced weapon in a game. 1-shot, 1-kill ability from 100m range is exceptionally powerful and gamebreaking honestly, especially when you consider nearly all engagements in most FPS games are 100m range or less. Keeping them short range helps limit their power while keeping the spirit of the weapon intact, while also increasing weapon diversity.

That being said, there are some shotguns with decent range in video games. The "NS Baron" shotgun in Planetside 2 has a narrow choke, so if you outfit it with slug ammunition you can get some decent range. I've taken people out at 50-100m with it. They balance that out with a slower TTK (time to kill) than rifles, and its worse at short range than other shotguns, but still better than rifles. It's definitely the exception, not the rule.

I'm with you though. I'd love to see more narrow-choke medium-range shotguns in games.
 
I'll take a KSG or UTS-15, thankyouverymuch. Nothing like a 14+1 shotgun for avoiding inconvenient reloads.
 
Mohonri said:
I'll take a KSG or UTS-15, thankyouverymuch. Nothing like a 14+1 shotgun for avoiding inconvenient reloads.
Click to expand...

My brother in law has a Kel-Tec KSG, and it's a lot of fun, but not practical in the least. It's tough to rack (forend needs to be racked to full stop, which is difficult and awkward with a vertical grip) and jams frequently, the tube selector needs to be actuated to switch tubes after the tube empties, the stock is WAY too compact for someone with long arms (at 6'1", It felt like holding an AR15 with a collapsible stock fully collapsed) and you don't have a lot of control due to the way you have to hold it because the shell ejects under the stock.

If you can't put someone/something down with 8 shotgun rounds, you need to work on form, not capacity.
 
Mohonri said:
I'll take a KSG or UTS-15, thankyouverymuch. Nothing like a 14+1 shotgun for avoiding inconvenient reloads.
Click to expand...

Yuck, no thanks. Gotta check out the vids where those are jamming like champs. Good old Mossberg 500 with a carbine fallback FTW.

I'm not going to say shotguns are over-rated, but the hype on them is unbelievably high. I still have one, but you do have to aim, and you have to know what you're doing to operate one.

A double-barreled shotgun for anything other than a last resort is stupid - you are not going to be combat-reloading that thing...
 
Chokes come in various sizes, not just full choke, so when saying to use a narrow choke means just anything with a lot of restriction. There's turkey choke for example, even narrower than full choke.
 
SRTie4k said:
If you can't put someone/something down with 8 shotgun rounds, you need to work on form, not capacity.
Click to expand...
Suppressive Fire!!!!
hqdefault.jpg
 
Mohonri said:
I'll take a KSG or UTS-15, thankyouverymuch. Nothing like a 14+1 shotgun for avoiding inconvenient reloads.
Click to expand...

Have you handled either of those? The UTS is a piece of junk all around. The keltec could be ok, barring the ergonomic issues, but their QC sucks. As a result, both tend to be jam-o-matics. Interesting concepts, crap execution. If you don't have the means to actually get your hands on them, there are plenty of youtube videos of both failing repeatedly.

The UTS and KSG are like having a lamborghini countach poster on the wall as a kid. The car looked freakin' amazing. But the interior was a cramped ergonomic nightmare.
 
That's what pisses me off about Keltec. They tend to have really great ideas, but the execution is often poor. Luckily the PLR-16 I have has functioned without issue (never jammed to date), but that seems to be the exception to the rule. On the plus side, at least Keltec has a lifetime warranty. So as long as its just a fun-gun and not something you rely on, at least you can send it back once or twice until its smithed properly and working well.
 
I always felt MW2's shotgun attachment was gold. Although not a classic double barrel shotgun, it was O/U with the AR, and was a very unbalanced weapon in the game. not a 1-shot kill, at 35m+ however its effective no scope ability up to that 100m range made exceptionally powerful and gamebreaking, 2 quick shots without aiming means you can stay mobile and honestly with the broken idea of snipers needing two shots at that range (else head) in game and compared to the rest of the shotguns in the game made it so you could out gun anyone by dashing about like a made man blowing you load from across the map. Try the same thing with a AA-12 and you were left empty and dead. Yet still at the end of the day, when its out of ammo, you were still left with the AR you had it on.
 
Screw single barrel, double barrel and quad barrel...
I want an AA12 with fragmentation rounds!
 
They should have mentioned that...
1. Buckshot is mostly used for hitting small and/or fasting moving targets. Birds, small mammals, and other small game mostly. one or two pellets could kill these animals but you need the spread to be able to hit them.
2. Firing both barrels at once could very likely injure you, especially for more powerful rounds.
 
Most modern double barrel shotguns mechanically cannot actuate both firing pins at the same time. The old style that had 2 physical triggers could, however.

But also realize that decades ago, when hunting safari, it was actually common to fire both rounds at the same time, and that was using 8 gauge "elephant gun" rounds. That was done for sheer stopping power when hunting large game.
 
Pretty much my love for the double barrel started with Doom and using it on the Killer Tomatos in the game (at least that's how I remembered them :p )
 
Video game double-barrels are made for sheer destructive power at close range. Doom 2's SSG does as much damage, if not moreso at times, as a rocket to the face if all pellets hit. Playing deathmatch in Doom 2 that gun was absolutely brutal, and I'm pretty sure that's why they toned it down in Quake, where the Rocket Launcher became king. It got a bit of a boost again in Quake 2. I think Quake 2's version had the best balance of power, spread, and refire speed. Doom 2's was great against monsters, but all in all I preferred Doom 1 for deathmatch. The rocket launcher was the powerhouse there, but you could still get plenty of kills with the shotgun and chaingun.

SRTie4k said:
Most modern double barrel shotguns mechanically cannot actuate both firing pins at the same time. The old style that had 2 physical triggers could, however.
Click to expand...

You can still get guns that have two triggers. You can make both go off at once without wrecking your hand by sticking an empty shell between the triggers and pressing the forward trigger. That's not really advisable, as the shock from both barrels going off could damage the barrel welds, and the recoil could damage your shoulder.

You won't find any production model double-barrel that fires both barrels at once with a single trigger pull, at least, none that are supposed to. There are people with complaints about certain models that tend to malfunction and do this anyway. I suppose someone could make a deliberate super-shotgun, but anyone with any plans to do so I'd recommend contacting the BATFE for clarification before accidentally constructing what could be an NFA-regulated destructive device or AOW.
 
The Action Quake 2 shotgun was the best ever. You could sneak up behind a sniper on a rooftop and blow them across the map.
 
196602.gif


this reload animation comes to mind (however, single barrel) :)

"double the barrels, double the fun" made me cringe. serious sam doesn't approve. but otherwise good video. i laughed at "you, sir, are being hunted" as a game title.
 
Zomoa said:
I agree. But you have to realize, the shotgun in it's natural form is a pretty unbalanced weapon in a game. 1-shot, 1-kill ability from 100m range is exceptionally powerful and gamebreaking honestly, especially when you consider nearly all engagements in most FPS games are 100m range or less.
Click to expand...

It depends. Realistically, shotguns are not very good against body armor. So if game in a modern setting were to model body armor shotguns would be rather useless. Which is how they are in a battle field situation; which is why they are being displaced for crowd control and door breaching. When it comes to killing people shotguns don't do anything better than a rifle.

When it comes to close quarters most SF/police units prefer short rifles or SMGs. While SMGs (aside from a few) can not punch through body armor they can use suppressors to efficiently reduce the noise making them ideal for stealthy scenarios. Place a suppressor on a 9-10" barrel rifle and you'll find that it isn't all that quiet.

Compared to a rifle, shotguns simply require more frequent reloading, can carry less ammo per size, and recoil more.

SGA76 said:
Screw single barrel, double barrel and quad barrel...
I want an AA12 with fragmentation rounds!
Click to expand...

You'll be more happy with this:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img542/3319/je6y.jpg

:D
 
Listen up kids, In real life shotguns aren't all that great for SD purposes. A lot of you here have been Bidened. ;)
 
Body armor or not you hit someone with buckshot from across the living room they are going to collapse. That is a lot of energy to absorb. Then you hit them again when they are down.
 
MH Knights said:
They should have mentioned that...
1. Buckshot is mostly used for hitting small and/or fasting moving targets. Birds, small mammals, and other small game mostly. one or two pellets could kill these animals but you need the spread to be able to hit them.

2. Firing both barrels at once could very likely injure you, especially for more powerful rounds.
Click to expand...

You mean "Bird" shot for #1. Buckshot's for the bigger animals.

#2 wasn't a big an issue for the old blackpowder loads (even 10 gauge), but yeah, shooting both barrels of "modern" smokeless and 3.5" magnum shells would hurt.. a lot...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top